ahem. for those of you not as concerned about my personal safety as kristen, i submit this article for your perusal. in which you can read a stunning tale of a parolee on the lam, chased by cops to my neighborhood, breaking into houses, hitting the residents in the face (this actually learned by second hand sighted info), pointing a gun at them, stealing their car, trashing the neighbors across the streets fence, and then being shot by cops and taken to the hospital.
the fact that no info is given out about him–his condition, his name, his crime–is a little weird. the fact that my mom was home alone and could have been taken hostage is terrifying. but i will be blase and say that since nothing did happen to her there’s no use worrying retrospectively. but inside i will be screaming, “mommy! mommy!”
there’s still newsvans there. and cops were being all csi until 7 this morning. and there’s blood on the street. things like this shouldn’t happen in suburbia. which i know is a terribly stupid and naive thing to say. but come on, not MY suburbia.
When I first heard the partial story from you in the park I (like Erica) was a little worried about the police shooting someone who was trying to escape on foot.
But if he was just starting another car chase in a monstrous SUV, I think I support the decision to fire upon the guy. It’s kind of weird that the police won’t say what his original crime was. But during the chase, he showed that he was more interested in getting away than in other people’s safety. What if, during a second chase, he had struck a family walking by the side of the road? It’s a tough call, but when someone is clearly about to endanger the lives of many people and there is no other way to stop them, I think the police should use lethal force.
jacob – according to your argument, the cops should be shooting the military. (and i’m not disagreeing.)
Wouldn’t it be cool if they’d duke it out in a no-holds-barred tussle to the death?
but how far can we take this reckless endangerment thing? for example, i happen to know a certain diner where the cook does not always wash his hands between handling raw beef and handling vegetables. he could potentially cause the death of dozens. so is this a case for lethal force?
and what about the worrisome teenage practice of “coning,” wherein teenagers swipe construction cones and barriers from the street and decorate one another’s homes? who can say how many nighttime drivers careened into potholes, causing potentially fatal accidents? shouldn’t we, as concerned citizens, encourage police to shoot these hazardous teens?
When I originally posted, I found myself a little worried about my own opinion. After talking to Dianna over lunch today, I think I see why I was worrying myself. The miracle of Dianna wins again. Lethal force was not what I wanted to have happen. I think the police would have been right to take away the man’s weapon by shooting out the tires on the car. Not to take away the man’s life (or attempting to do so) by shooting out the man.
but my (in retrospect) very snide sounding comment does, i feel, merit lethal force. pardon me while i administer my own severe beating.
WHACK!
(ow.)
taking out the man’s weapon (car) is all very well and good. but what about the actual weapon he had which was a gun? should they shoot the tires on it out too? doesn’t work so well.
but personally i don’t think giving cops guns is the best plan. why don’t we have more tranquilizer guns instead? there’s no real need to shoot to kill when you could just shoot and deal with later when s/he wakes up.
oh, scarlett. (actually, good idea, scarlett.)
i’d like to object to the pedestalization to which jacob is subjecting me with no consideration for my acute fear of heights. i don’t believe i actually spewed forth any particular profundity, i simply made the following assertion.
i very nearly agree with jacob’s earlier statement, with the proviso that specifically lethal force is never a good thing. if someone is running around not just recklessly but in fact deliberately endangering people (i.e. taking a hostage while armed with a gun), then yes, the police may very well have no better option than to use a great deal of force to subdue the person. in an ideal world, of course, if you can’t shoot out the car tires instead of shooting out the man then you should damn well hand off the firearms to someone who’s a better shot. this is not an ideal world, so you do whatever you can to discharge your duty of nullifying the threat to public safety, and hopefully you keep the severity of your actions appropriate to the severity of the threat. but in absolutely no case will i say that the police should deliberately use lethal force because, after all, the whole goal is for people NOT to get killed.
that was a very long comment. i’m sorry, guys. really. i hang my head in great amounts of shame.